Albany Administration Centre Site Citizens' Jury

Aug to Oct 2002

Issue

The Albany City Council requested a rezoning of land to relocate the
Albany administration building approximately 1.4 km from the centre of
Albany's Central Business District. After considering the request, the
WA Planning Commission recommended to the Minister for Planning and
Infrastructure that she refuse to grant final approval of the rezoning
amendment.

Albany City Council Position

The arguments presented by the Albany City Council rejecting the
location of the administrative centre within the CBD were as follows:

development
on the current site in York St was incompatible with their proposals
for a Regional Cultural Centre, expansion of library facilities and
recognition of possible Aboriginal Heritage issues;

the cost of acquisition and lack of availability of privately
owned land of suitable size; and

sites other than York St not providing a prominent CBD focus.

WA Planning Commission Position

The arguments presented by the WA Planning Commission refusing
approval of the Amendment were as follows:

the request was inconsistent with the Council's endorsed
Commercial Strategy which sought to strengthen the CBD;

Council
had not demonstrated conclusively that there were no practical or
affordable locations for the administration building in the CBD; and

there was considerable public opposition to the location of the
administration centre outside the CBD.

Agreement to a Deliberative Process

The final decision was now in the hands of the Minister for Planning
and Infrastructure. The Minister noted that Council did consult with
the community, but was concerned about whether real community
engagement had occurred, and that the community remained divided over
the issue. Albany Council had refused an earlier offer by the State to
jointly engage the community in a process of further examining a broad
range of potential sites. To make a determination on this issue, the
Minister decided to find out what a truly representative, informed
group of Albany citizens would recommend it they had the opportunity to
understand all the information and the time to deliberate. To this end,
she recommended that a Citizens' Jury be held.

Albany Council agreed to participate in the process, although they
decided not to sign the proposed Memorandum of Understanding between
the Department for Planning and Infrastructure and Council, outlining
each party's rights and responsibilities in the Citizens' Jury process.

Methodology

Citizens' Jury

Process - Prior to the Jury Proceedings

Determination of the Jury's Brief

Given the lack of agreement between the Albany City Council and the
WA Planning Commission, there was considerable negotiation before both
parties agreed to a brief for the jury. It was as follows:

Is it fundamental to Albany to have the administrative centre within
the central business district (CBD), or do the advantages of the
proposed administrative centre in North Road outweigh any disadvantages
of it being outside the city centre?

Selection of the Steering Group

The Steering Group was selected to represent all the stakeholders in
the debate. It was chaired by the local MP and had representatives from
the City Council, Chamber of Commerce, Minister's Office, Department
for Planning and Infrastructure, and lobby groups for and against the
proposed site. The task of the small Steering Group was to oversee the
process through to completion, ensuring its transparency,
accountability and responsiveness to the local community.

The Group met over a two month period, during which time they
selected the Expert Witnesses, oversaw the development of the jury's
introductory package, the process for recruiting of jurors and the
hearings, and determined guidelines for marketing and media management.

Selection and Recruitment of the Citizens' Jury

The Jury was selected through a process of random sampling. The WA
Electoral Commission provided a random sample of 600 residents living
in the Albany region. Invitations from the Minister were sent to the
600 strong sample, asking them to participate in a Citizens' Jury on
the selection of the site for the Albany administration centre. Of
those, 92 responded positively, and a further random sample was carried
out to select the final 17 jurors.

There was some discussion at the Steering Group to determine if the
sample should be stratified to ensure equal representation, eg by
gender, location, age, occupation. However, the Steering Group decided
to rely solely on random sampling to attain a good mix of jurors.

The jurors were made up of eight men and nine women from different
locations throughout the Albany, including the central business
district, urban residential, semi rural residential and rural
locations. The composition of the jury reflected a comprehensive mix of
occupations as well as variation in ages (though there were no jurors
under the age of 25) and in the duration of time living in Albany.

Recruitment of a Facilitator

The facilitator was experienced in conducting Citizens' Juries and
had no interest in the outcome of the proceedings.

Selection of Questions and Expert Witnesses

The Steering Group carried out possibly its most contentious task of
selecting questions and expert witnesses to ensure the jury was
presented with all the available data and viewpoints. The expert
witnesses were those with knowledge or experience of the issues who
could provide the jury with sufficient information to enable them to
deliberate productively. Because the hearings were to be completed on
the one day, the numbers of expert witnesses had to be limited. It was
suggested that any more than eight witness presentations would occupy
too much of the jury's deliberation time.

After several meetings of the Steering Group, eight expert witnesses
were selected. The aim was to ensure all view points were represented,
not all stakeholder groups. The witnesses included two from other
Councils in the State, one that moved their administration centre into
the central business district and the other that had an administration
centre outside the CBD but a shop front within.

Development of Introductory Material

The Steering Group worked together to produce an introductory
package for the jurors. It consisted of a description of the Citizens'
Jury process, the roles and responsibilities of each of the parties, a
paper outlining the points of agreement between the Albany Council and
WA Planning Commission, and two separate papers, one outlining the WA
Planning Commission's position and the other, the City of Albany's
position.

The Introductory package was posted to the jurors 10 days before the
jury hearings.
Jurors were asked to read the papers before the Introductory Session to
be held on the Thursday evening before the Saturday's hearings.

A second package of information, the expert witness presentations,
was also sent to jurors. However, due to postage delays, some jurors
only received this package at the introductory session.

The names of the jurors were not made public, indeed they were not
known to either the Steering Group or any of the expert witnesses. It
was suggested to jurors that for their own comfort (to avoid any
potential lobbying) they not let others know of their selection.

Conducting of the Jury Introductory Session

The jury introductory session, a three hour meeting, was held
privately in non aligned premises. During the session, jurors got to
know one another, discussed the issues and format for the one day
hearing, and formulated additional questions to ask the expert
witnesses. The expert witnesses were the key stakeholders in the issue
as well as those with relevant information or experience, chosen by the
Albany Administration Centre Steering Group.

It was agreed to give the expert witnesses forewarning of the likely
questions to be asked on the day by the Jury. The aim was to give
witnesses sufficient time to prepare clear and concise responses.

The format for the hearings agreed to by the jurors was for each
juror who nominated to play a part in the questioning of expert
witnesses. It was agreed that there would be opportunities during the
hearings to create new questions to ask of expert witnesses and to
delete any questions already answered. Jurors also worked on an initial
list of criteria that they could use to evaluate the two options.

Process - during the Jury Proceedings

Examination of Expert Witnesses

The Jury hearing, held on the Saturday, commenced at 9.00am and
ended at 6.15pm The morning sessions, consisting of the presentations
and questioning of the expert witnesses, were watched by a
participative audience of approximately 100 people. The afternoon
session of jury deliberation was held in camera. The audience returned
at 6.00pm for the announcement of the jury recommendations.

During the morning sessions, eight Expert Witnesses presented to the
jury in two sessions. The Council and WA Planning Commission
representatives had 15 minutes, all other witnesses had 10 mins to
present the issue they had been asked to discuss.

Following the first four presentations, jurors asked a series of
questions of the expert witnesses. The audience was also given the
opportunity to assist the jurors by asking additional questions.
Audience questions were put in a box, discussed by jurors and only
those useful to their deliberations were chosen by the jury and put to
the expert witnesses. During the second session of four presentations,
the individual members of the jury put questions to the expert
witnesses. The final session of the morning included direct questioning
of the eight expert witnesses by the audience.

Jury Deliberations

Agreement to the Decision-Making Process

Jurors discussed their decision making process and reaffirmed that
they would use a multi-criteria analysis method. This would involve
agreement to the criteria upon which to base the decision, weighting of
each criterion according to its importance, discussion of each option
according to each criterion, scoring of each option based on the
available data, then using the weighted score to determine the
preferred option.

The jurors agreed that once a decision was made about either the CBD
or North Road, that they would like to put forward a number of
recommendations for consideration.

It was agreed that the timeframe all jurors would use in their
deliberations would be 10-25 years.

a) Agreement to the Criteria

The jury deliberations began with discussion of the evaluation
criteria to be used by the jury to judge each of the options.
Suggestions of potential evaluation criteria from the Steering Team
were also discussed. Four criteria were agreed to:

Vibrancy of the CBD

Civic vision

Cost effectiveness

Accessibility

b) Weighting the Criteria

The jurors were asked to weight each of the four criteria in order
of importance, with the total equalling 100.

The juror's individual weightings were then calculated against the
criteria and averaged. The following weightings resulted: Vibrancy
(34.3%), Civic Vision (23.3%), Cost Effectiveness (23.1%) and
Accessibility (19.2%).

c) Discussing the Options against the Criteria

The jurors formed four small working groups to research and discuss
the data, advantages and disadvantages of the two options as measured
against one of the criteria. Each group then relayed its information
back to the whole jury for broad discussion. Following the discussion,
the options were scored against that criterion.

d) Choosing the Preferred Option

Each of the options was scored against each of the criteria. These
scores were then multiplied by the weighting for that criterion (The
criteria weights are outlined on the top row of the table below). The
table below gives the weighted scores for each option against each
criterion.

Final Analysis

Prioritisation Matrix -
Weighting Analysis

Vibrancy

Civic Vision

Cost Effectiveness

Accessibility

34.3%

23.3%

23.1%

19.2%

Prioritisation Matrix - Final
Analysis with consideration to Criteria weighting

Vibrancy

Civic Vision

Cost Effectiveness

Accessibility

Total

North Rd

16.95%

11.87%

18.20%

11.12%

58.14%

CBD

17.38%

11.46%

4.94%

8.08%

41.86%

The above Table indicates that North Rd was the preferred option.
While it was not a case of overwhelming support, it was clear that on
two of the four criteria being used to evaluate the options - vibrancy
and accessibility - North Rd was slightly preferred, and on one option
- cost effectiveness - North Rd was clearly preferred. The CBD was only
preferred on one option - city vision. The final preference scoring was
58% for North Rd and 42% for the CBD

The jury then considered the preferred option - North Rd - and how
jurors felt about the outcome. While some jurors were pleased with the
outcome and others were disappointed, all agreed to abide by the final
result. The jury then worded their recommendation and added several
additional recommendations jurors felt were important for the Albany
Council as well as the Minister to consider and take on board.

The jury felt it was important that the Council act upon the series
of commitments it had outlined in its presentations, including the
revitalisation of the York St site, the CBD shop front and the park
land setting for the proposed North Rd site. The jury also made
additional recommendations about improving public transport to the CBD
and North Rd, and the prioritisation of the development of Yakamia
Drive.

Jury RecommendationCharge

The jury was asked to consider the following charge: Is it
fundamental to Albany to have the administrative centre within the
central business district, or do the advantages of the proposed
administrative centre in North Road outweigh any disadvantages of it
being outside the city centre?

Results

The result of the jury deliberations and decision making process is
that the advantages of the proposed administration centre in North Road
outweigh any disadvantages of it being outside the city centre.

Recommendations
The jury recommends:

That the council be charged with revitalising the York
Street site as a matter of urgency. This was clearly stated by
councillors as an undertaking that had their unanimous support.

That the council proceed with a CBD shop front in conjunction
with the building of the new administration centre.

That public transport options to the CBD and North Road be
improved.

That the Yakamia Drive development be given priority and
incorporated with the North Road administration development.

When the administration centre is built at North Road that a
parkland setting be developed at the same time.

That the citizens jury process be implemented for major decision
making in the future, in particular for controversial issues.

Presentation of the Jury Recommendations

The jury presented their recommendations to the Steering Group. It
was agreed that one juror would be the key speaker, but others would
comment. The Steering Group expressed their appreciation for the jury's
work. On behalf of the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, Peter
Watson, MLA for Albany, then presented the results and recommendations
to members of the public and media.

It was announced that the Minister would make her decision on the
rezoning early the following week.

Response to the Jury Recommendations

The Minister agreed to approve the rezoning in line with the jury's
recommendation.

Noting the jurors' additional recommendations, the Minister
suggested to the Albany Council to jointly engage in a public
Enquiry-by-Design process to determine how to holistically combine the
various developments proposed for the city of Albany.

A Jury Report of the process and proceedings was circulated to
jurors. The jurors made corrections. The Report was then sent to the
Minister and the other stakeholders in the process.